Amid all of the negative press that Portland, Oregon, has received over the past few years due to the lawlessness of left-wing violence group Antifa, the city funded a full-page ad in The New York Times on Sunday that appears to take pride in the issues underpinning the city’s negative reputation.
“You’ve heard a lot about us lately. It’s been a while since you heard from us. Some of what you’ve heard about Portland is true. Some is not. What matters most is that we’re true to ourselves,” the ad began.
The ad then mentioned the Willamette River, but not by name, as a way to claim that Portland is “a place of dualities that are never polarities. Two sides to the same coin that keep landing right on its edge. Anything can happen. We like it this way.”
The ad also claims that the city “is the kind of place where new ideas are welcome – whether they’re creative, cutting-edge or curious at first glance. You can speak up here. You can be yourself here.”
Unsaid in the ad is that those comments only apply to people who at least lean progressive. Conservatives don’t have that same freedom.
“We have some of the loudest voices on the West Coast. And yes, passion pushes the volume all the way up. We’ve always been like this. We wouldn’t have it any other way,” the ad continued. “We have faith in the future. We’re building it every day the only way we know how, by being Portland.”
As local news outlet Willamette Week reported, the ad, placed by Travel Portland, “received a swift and merciless backlash” on Twitter, “mostly from Portlanders taking issue with the ad assuming a unified voice for all of the city.”
Those Portlanders highlighted, however, made the city seem like a racist haven for alt-right sympathizers, when that couldn’t be further from the truth. Antifa routinely riots in the streets, occasionally confronted by right-wing group the Proud Boys. City officials have moved so far to the Left that police are routinely demonized, which recently resulted in the entire police “crowd control unit” resigning. As The Daily Wire reported, the unit of around 50 officers, detectives, and sergeants resigned “one day after a grand jury in Oregon indicted a fellow officer for the alleged use of ‘unlawful’ force against a protestor during last year’s violent ‘social justice’ riots.”
That officer was Corey Budworth, whom the Portland Police Association described as “a committed public servant of the highest integrity” in a post on Facebook.
“After nearly 75 consecutive nights of violence, destruction, and mayhem, a small group of [Riot Response Team] RRT officers — including Officer Budworth — were again tasked with dealing with the riot. Per PPB Command Staff orders, RRT officers cleared the rioters from the area to allow the Fire Bureau to extinguish the blaze,” the union wrote. “But the rioters were not satisfied. A short time later, the same group of rioters re-amassed and began to march back toward the Multnomah Building. RRT was again deployed to disperse the crowd and prevent any further violence and criminal activity. A confrontation then ensued. As RRT officers worked to clear the rioting crowd, Officer Budworth was forcefully knocked to the ground. The crowd grew even more aggressive, prompting other RRT officers to deploy pepper spray and less lethal munitions to try and break up the riot.”
The union claimed Budworth “has been caught in the crossfire of agenda-driven city leaders and a politicized criminal justice system.”